


How Do You Know there is an After?

by EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Because honestly, Chapter 3 will be DEVASTATING, Choosing Not To Use Archive Warnings and Saying They Dont Apply are Two Different Things, Climate Change is real, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, If You'd Like to Call it That, In Both Good and Bad Ways, Jaime and Brienne's First Time, Realistic Timeline for White Walker Arrival, Reimagining Jaime's Ending, Resolved Sexual Tension, Revisiting The Whole Bath Motif, Tags are Rough, The Long Night, The White Walkers Aren't Useless, Winterfell, hopefully at least, smut in chapter 2, soft jaime, subtle book references, the things we do for love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-13 02:29:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20574950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12/pseuds/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12
Summary: Within a week of Jaime Lannister's arrival at Winterfell, the army of the dead is set to arrive. Brienne of Tarth stays his execution and the debts he owes her continue to grow.As the Long Night closes in and the forces of mankind gather at Winterfell to stop them, Jaime can feel the ghosts that linger in the walls. Ghosts of battles long ago lost, of fathers and mothers and children long dead, of honor, found both in knights of name and knights of action...





	1. Steam

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot be blamed for what I write while listening to sad music and thinking about Jaime/Brienne. 
> 
> Honestly I wrote this because while I loved the scene of them that we did get, I think that it missed a lot of their key character development. Also, Jaime's character arc was just butchered all to Hell and back and I wanted to fix that. Sorry in advance, I would not say that this has the happiest of endings, but I woule say that it has to be more satisfying than Jaime going back to Cersei after leaving her to ride North in the first place. 
> 
> Anywho, I hope you enjoy! Please R and R, and let me know what you think!

He slipped on the hard stone, lurching forward to catch himself on the wall with a loud, clattering bang of his metal hand. A group of Northern soldiers passed by him, stiffening laughter at his slip. It was not until a moment after they were gone that he realized that the stone was perfectly even and he could feel the ghost of a hand where it had pushed him at the shoulder blade.

He kept his eyes low as a parcel of washerwoman shuffled by him, the oldest of which turned her face from him while the younger ones – who, from the shared sallow skin and sinking eyes must have been her daughters- stared at him boldfaced. He didn’t want to care about them, about their petty opinions for actions that they didn’t understand. He wanted to hold his head high and stare back at them with green fire as he had been doing since the first time a man had called him Kingslayer.

But these were not the people of King’s Landing, not the self-important men of the Crownlands or lordlings with fancy armor and not the first clue of how to wield the swords tied improperly to their hips. And this was not the Red Keep, where for every face that twitched with disgust, there was his sister, his father, his brother that reminded him how significant he was. Here in Winterfell, the ghosts that laid thick around him were Ned and Catelyn Stark. His condemner and attempted redeemer. Their son, who’s features he could scarcely recall except that he looked so much his mother he might not have called him Stark if it wasn’t for the disapproval that set hard lines around his mouth every time they looked down at Jaime, locked in a cell or tied to that wretched pole.

Given his choice, he would have avoided them entirely. Letting him live had been enough kindness that the new Lady Stark was willing to extend to him, and for a time, he had been left to wonder if would have a place to sleep. Podrick had offered to help him collect enough straw for a pallet that he could place beside Pod’s own moth-eaten mattress in the soldiers barracks. The Northerner’s tolerated Podrick, he had said, because of his Lady’s dedication to Sansa, but they gave him a wide berth at night for the Lannister red jerkin he wore for armor. Tyrion, thankfully, had offered Jaime a spot in his own room, on a cot made of roughly fashioned wood with a mattress with thankfully minimal stains.

But more than bed or the dinner he was certain he was not welcome at, what drew him from his brother’s cramped quarters was the idea of a bath. Podrick, though seeming perhaps slightly disappointed he would not have a friend in the barracks, had taken his armor to clean along with his Lady’s for the night. Tyrion had found him some decent clothes to throw on so he could send away the clothes he had brought to be cleaned along with his own.

“Best to confuse these Northerners,” His brother had laughed into his wine after dinner, “They’ll think I’ve grown. A traitor and a magic dwarf.” It wasn’t long after that the wine had lulled Tyrion to sleep and Jaime had wrung his hand out on the bed, wearing someone else’s clothes and realizing the thin film of filth that clung to his skin. Taking a towel from Tyrion’s dresser and a brick of soap he found by digging through his brothers things for far longer than he meant to, he had decided that perhaps it was late enough that he could take a bath in relative peace.

He wanted to laugh at how foolish that notion had been. For a simple soldier to strike someone of his birth to begin with would have been an unfathomable thing not long ago. For a woman of low birth to ignore him so completely and not correct her children’s open stares would have been unspeakably offensive to someone like his father. But he was not Tywin Lannister, and to these people, he seemed to be hardly human. If Ned Stark was a ghost of Winterfell, perhaps he was its demon. Flinging Brandon Stark out of a window, fucking his sister in some dark tower, refusing to apologize for his open offenses. IF this was how the smallfolk were going to regard him, he could only imagine what the highborns had whispered to each other over dinner. The old Jaime would have laughed at them, built himself into a cage that he refused to let them crack.

At the moment, he lacked the strength to consider why he might be worth it.

After what seemed a lifetime of walking through well-lit hallways, holding nothing of his own, he could feel the thickening of the air with steam. While the castle held its heat quite well, the surplus of torches keeping the stone dry while the hot springs underneath kept it warm, this was a different sort of heat. It was something full enough to ward off the chill that spoke of winter. The one that had chased him all the way from King’s Landing in the snows and the frigid nights when his hand hadn’t cooperated enough to get a fire going.

He pushed the wooden door open, hearing a shifting in the water, but the air was so thick that he couldn’t see who might be there, and doubted they could see him. He didn’t speak; if this was some late night soldier or Lord, they might see this an opportunity to slit his throat in the bath. He could think of only three people in the castle who might blink away a tear at the thought and an infinite number who would as soon launch his body from one of the castle trebuchets as an offering to the White Walkers than hold him a funeral.

He pulled himself loose from the clothes haphazardly, realizing belatedly the benefit of having the tailor so readily available in King’s Landing. The tunic, already a bit small in the shoulders and wide in the waist, was difficult to pull off of his head, but that was nothing compared to the breeches where he realized that in his agitation early, he had worked the strings into knots.

Finally freed from his clothing, he walked towards the steps of the nearest tub.

“There are other tubs,” The voice was abrupt, followed by another splash of water. He had been anticipating resistance, but still, unable to the see the face of the person he was speaking with he had to smile as walked down into the water.

“This one suits me fine,” He sank to his chest in the water setting his soap carefully on the edge of the tub.

“Ser Jaime.” The voice was startled, and he had to smile for what felt like the first time in a lifetime.

“Lady Brienne,” He looked across the round tub where he could make out the shape of her, sunk down into the water so they were of even height again. “I’m afraid I’ve interrupted your bath yet again.” She didn’t answer for a moment, “I can hear you thinking all the way over here, Lady Brienne.”

“I am confused,” She said carefully and he heard her shifting around in the water. Half-expecting her to wade over to him, to emerge from the steam and materialize in front of him, he couldn’t help sucking in a breath of disappointment when he heard the soft scratch of soap on skin.

“Despite my rough nature, Lady Brienne, I do enjoy a nice bath…”

“It is the middle of the night!” He heard the slight exasperation in her voice, and the familiarity of it warmed in almost as much as the bath. He picked up the soap, starting to work it in rough circles over his scalp, leaving behind a thick layer of it on his skin. He would have to ask Tyrion where he had gotten this soap; it smelled better than most anything Jaime had ever used, scented with lemons and sweetgrass and sand instead of the standard scent of lye and lard with a bit of pine if they were lucky. Most soap in King’s landing served a dual purpose of washing bodies and floors, but this was soft and slippery as he worked it through his hair and over the skin of his face. He had the sudden bizarre thought that he would climb out of the tub smelling like a tray of cakes, and with it the urge to laugh freely.

“Why are you bathing in the middle of the night, Ser Jaime?”

Rather than answer, he dunked his head under the water, feeling the soap rise off of his skin with the dirt he had scraped off. For a moment, he wanted to open his eyes under the water and look upwards into the torchlight and steam above the water, to linger there below the surface and watch the world from below.

“Ser Jaime?” Muffled, her voice brought him back to the surface, where he ran his left hand through his hair to get it off of his forehead.

“I should think we’re on a first name basis by now,” He said softly. So softly he was afraid his voice wouldn’t travel through the air. But it seemed to him that the air was thinning. He assumed that the steam came in cycles with the water from the springs, though he couldn’t say for sure. He was certain that if he stared across the water, he could make out the blue of Brienne’s eyes in the curvature of her face. The curvature of all of her, her shoulders that were equal in width and breadth to his own but that shaped down into a body that had endured far more ridicule than his own, that he knew was dotted and cut with scars that he could only imagine had gotten more numerous. But a body also that he for an instant he imagined slotted up against his own, womanly and warm in the face of the Long Night. A body that held strength to match his own and scars to match his own and that inside it carried the only person Jaime might consider to have a shred of honor left in this world.

He watched her shape through the thinning steam for another moment, before his body began responding in the same shape as his thoughts and he swallowed back those notions as guilt trickled through him, cold and a reminder that this was a delicate a situation as had been his trial in the Great Hall. And one, frankly, he cared about the outcome of far more.

“I might ask you the same question, actually.” He could imagine the blush blotching across the soft features of her face. It made him think of blood, flowing in his own veins, flowing through hers. Proof that they were alive, that they could and were fighting. At the moment, proof that he wanted her. “Why are you bathing so late in the evening, Brienne?”

“I always bathe late,” She said, and her voice was back to being matter-of-fact. If he hadn’t known her so well, he would have disregarded it as her wanting to talk. But he watched, even as he picked up his own soap again and began to scrub the grime from his arms and shoulders, she tucked her face to the side. Though hazy, he recognized it as one of her defensive maneuvers. If she didn’t look at him, she didn’t have to hide the traces of hurt. She was no longer as shy as she had been, or perhaps she simply believed that this fog shielded her completely from his vision. “I chose not to bathe with the soldiers. Or the other women of the castle. I’ve no desire to be gawped at, Jaime.”

If she had been looking at him, he might have thought it was a pointed statement for him to stop staring at her so blatantly, his mind fading between thoughts of his own sorry state and imagining it were her gentle fingers scraping a month’s riding from his skin with sweet soap. It took him a moment longer than it should have to realize that the title had slipped from his name. She had heard him after all. The thought made him smile, made him a bit bolder.

“My apologies, Brienne, for staring,” He said and watched her stiffen, “I haven’t seen you in so long…”

The sound of her wash stopped. He swallowed back everything his stomach threatened to push back onto him. His arousal, his guilt, his exhaustion, the horrible sickening feeling that she should hate him as much as everyone else did if not more so, and he moved towards her in the water.

The smell coming off her soap was harsh. The same lye soap that he was used to, though perhaps it had just a touch of mint. A winter fragrance, perhaps, of one of the only plants that could survive the harsh cold. He expected her to jerk away as he came closer, but even as her features cleared in his view, she stayed as she was, holding her soap close to her skin until he was close enough that he could reach out and graze her with his fingertips.

“It’s good to see you,” He said. In another lifetime, he might have kept his voice from cracking in that moment. He might have been able to look into her eyes, guarded as they were, and not felt himself cracking along all of the fault lines inside him. “Thank you.”

“For what?” She was trying to keep her voice steady, he could tell, but the tone had softened as she looked him over.

“Everything,” He blinked, looking down into the water where a thin film of soap obscured the view of his arms below. If he squinted, he could imagine that there were still two hands there, feeling phantom fingers as he flexed the muscles in his involuntarily. A blink and the thought was gone. That man was nothing more than a distant memory. If it hadn’t been for the pair of them huddled in this tub, he wondered if anyone would remember that man for anything other than for killing a king. “You saved my life-“

She scoffed at that, twisting away from him slightly.

“Brienne,” His voice stopped her. “You did. More than once. To say nothing for the rest of me.”

“You have done all of that yourself, Jaime.” She said, though he could hear her on the edge of something else. “You fulfilled your oaths…”

“Because of you,” He said, but he could tell that he was losing this argument. Brienne’s eyes, rich blue, had turned away from him again and she was pulling into herself. “I have to ask one more thing from you, Brienne,” He said carefully, trying to put a touch of humor back into his voice.

“Which is?”

“Could you please wash my back?” He extended his hand with the soap to her, and she stared at him as though he were crazy. She took the bar carefully between her fingers and he turned around, taking a step back towards her.

At first he thought she might not do it, and when the first touch of soap came onto his shoulder, slightly cold, he had to still himself to keep from jumping. Her hand made slow circles on his skin, and he could feel the bar linger over what he new had been fresh wounds that had clearly turned to scars. A slash across his back from the attack of the wagon train. Another from an embarrassing fall from his horse on his trip North that had gouged deep into his skin and taken far too long to heal. But she didn’t speak.

He closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to say the right thing and to never speak again. To let her hands continue this gentle work over him forever. Her touch, fleetingly remembered, was the same as it had been. She finished his back, and without asking or prompting, started on his left side where he couldn’t quite twist his wrist to clean too well.

He let out a soft hum at that as the bar pressed into a shallow bruise just above his ribs. For the life of him, he couldn’t even remember how he had gotten it, but she found it. It was the touch that followed however, not of the soap bar but of her fingers, ghosting over his skin to examine the wound. He swallowed, willing his body to stop reacting to the feeling of her getting closer to him in the water, the heat from her body almost as resonate as the heat from the water. He heard her set the soap bar down on the edge.

“There's a small cut at the center. Perhaps you should see a maester…” He turned around, her hand retracting, and in an instant they were face to face, her body almost pressed flush to his. He was standing more out of the water, slightly taller than her where she kept her chest below. He saw her breath hitch in her throat, her lips parted slightly as she looked at him.

He lowered himself where they could be eye level again. “Maybe I should,” He agreed, and her brows furrowed. He wanted nothing more than to wrap an arm around her, cradle her close to his body. Kiss her, touch her, run his hands and lips over her expanse of skin. Learn every scar and cradle and crevice that was written across her. But if he did that, it would ruin everything. As badly as he wanted her, as badly as he wanted this, he could not do that to her. He needed to know what she wanted. “I’d like to do something else, first.”

He saw in her face that she wanted to believe what all of the signs were telling her. That he wanted her desperately and deliberately and fully, but every insecurity she had ever felt, the same ones she had beaten back but that kept her coming to bathtub at odd hours to avoid stares and whispers and japes were bubbling up.

So he reached out his hand, cupping it along the side of her face and stroking his thumb down the side of her jaw. “I’ll stop, Brienne…” He offers, but she says nothing as he leans closer. The water makes his movements odd, and his chest presses against hers before his mouth can reach hers. The feel of it is electric. Ingratiating. Addictive.

Her lips, as gentle as the hands that are careful not to hold him too tightly, are much the same.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't edited yet! Sorry for typos, wanted to get it up before I didn't have internet. Will fix! 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy! :D Please R and R, et me know what you think!

His next two days are spent as much with Tyrion as anyone else. Perhaps sensing that something has happened between them, the Lady of Winterfell has seen fit to keep Brienne glued to her side as much as possible. Any time they could speak, from meals to the training yard to the calm hours before the castle settles down to sleep are instead spent apart as Brienne is called away on taciturn errands that Sansa needs done. For every soft look Brienne sends him across the Hall and for every time he tries to do something as simple as wave to her, there is a cold stare one from Sansa Stark. As a result, the few blissful minutes from the tub are becoming an unaccompanied memory more than anything else.

He wakes on the third day to a rough shake on his shoulder. Thinking that one of the Stark men has come to their senses and come to slit his throat, he swings his arms wildly to where their head ought to be. Finding only air, he instead looks into the eyes of his brother heavy with sleep. “If you’re going to talk so loudly in your sleep, kindly take your mattress into the hallway.”

If Tyrion hadn’t interrupted such a pleasant dream, he might have felt worse for irritating him when the dark circles under his eyes showed the immense pressure he was under. With Cersei’s lie, his position at Daenerys’ side had become increasingly precarious. Jaime’s arrival had practically sealed his fate, and his daylight hours were spent attempting to heal the feud between his former wife and current ruler while trying to keep an army of half-trained, terrified soldiers in shape for a fight. At least Tyrion had laughed when they had been getting ready the morning after his bath and had asked, almost offended, if Jaime had taken his soap. _“And your towel,” _Jaime had assured him.

But it was also because of Tyrion that Jaime had found out where in the castle Brienne was staying. Winterfell had not seemed so large the last time he was here, but perhaps that came from living most of his life in stone walls at Casterly Rock or within the Red Keep. But, despite their small number, the tunnels of Winterfell all looked the same, all lit with the same type of stone torches and set with the same gray stones. He had considered simply going back to the baths each night until she returned, but Tyrion only had so much soap, and in wartime such as this, that was an indulgence he did not want tacked onto his name.

But finally, his brother, whether he had done it deliberately in an attempt to allow for himself some space in his own room or because his control was truly slipping, had mentioned that since Brienne was only one door down from Lady Sansa’s chamber, that having multiple guards posted was an excess that they could do without and instead have more men in the forges or training with the squires.

On the third day, Jaime went to her room after ensuring that she had already left the Great Hall after dinner. He had taken to eating with Podrick or at the end of a table where a group of wildlings sat. The wildlings did not seem to care whether or not he had killed a king or what sort of shape his honor was in, and they didn’t care whether he sat with them or not either. So, when it was that Podrick had other duties to attend to, he sat in silence at the end of the table, watching Brienne at her place at the high table, half-listening to tales of giants and the King Beyond the Wall.

This night, he ate slowly, ignoring the hard stares on his back and the whispers that were deliberately loud enough for him to hear and japes at his expense that sent up roars of laughter at the table next to him. Brienne did not leave her seat until Lady Sansa had done the same, where nearly all of the hall had cleared out, including the tables who had decided that a nonresponsive target was not much fun, and the wildlings, one of whom had asked him to his face if he really had fucked his sister. He hadn’t answered, though he had feeling that they weren’t the type to give up.

Finally, she left the hall, paying him a glance behind her, likely wondering why he had sat over an empty bowl of stew for the better part of two hours. He waited a few more minutes, forcing his leaping heart to still before it jumped into his throat from the pressure. He wasn’t truly sure what he was doing. He didn’t think he had malintentions. When he thought of Brienne, even when his thoughts lingered on how she felt against him, how she had opened her mouth so easily when he kissed her, the feel of her skin slick against his own, there was not the shadow of impropriety that there always had been. When he had been with Cersei, he had known, always known, that it was wrong. That they shouldn’t be touching each other or thinking of each other that way at all, but he had accepted it the same as she had. Those thoughts were absent with Brienne, and where he expected a hollowness always left for Cersei, there was instead a trickling warmth. But deeper than that, he simply wanted to speak to her again. To make sure that their exchange in the tub had not ruined this fragile peace he had felt between them since Riverrun. He wanted her, in whatever way she chose to stand beside him.

He swallowed back his nerves, saying a quick thank you to the young girl who finally came for his bowl. She gave a frightened squeak as he stood suddenly, but he scarcely heard her. He walked through the halls, forcing himself to maintain an even pace, to not react at those who passed him, until he came to the hallway that contained the Lord and Lady’s chambers. A guard stood outside Lady Sansa’s door, one of the Knights of the Vale that she had brought with her to Winterfell. The main eyes him carefully, but he walked past him with a sure gait, coming to another, plainer door. It must have, at some point, been the chamber of a wet nurse or perhaps even the nursery for the Stark children. He did not want to think of the Stark children at that moment. Not the dead ones who’s faces swam in his dreams, nor the living ones who seemed waiting for him to falter and slip from the precarious ledge he was balancing on.

Stealing his nerves, he knocked quickly on the door, hearing movement from within. The door opened wide, and he wondered for a moment if she might be expecting someone else. He She stared at hi for several long moments, and he thought that there was a muted softness around her at the moment. Perhaps coming from the room, or the fact that she was not wearing her armor. The armor he had given her so long ago it might have been a different lifetime. For him, surely it was.

“Jaime,” She said finally. He felt with immense pressure, the exact amount of time he had been standing there in silence.

“Lady Brienne,” He bowed his head a bit, “I was wondering if we might speak.”

He expected her to hesitate, to see something in his motions that he hadn’t even been able to identify himself. Coming here, he had told himself that he had no intentions, ill or otherwise, than to simply speak to her. But now…being so close…he couldn’t say that for certain. The pictures in his mind weren’t as clear as they could be. His thoughts of her had never been as clear as they were with others. Jaime Lannister, the Lion of Lannister, stumbling over his own feelings was not something men would take kindly to in war. But this was not war, and in his mind were pictures so uncertain they seemed almost fuzzy around the edges. Her body, pressed along his, wrapped in the warmth that was emanating out of her room. The feel of her long fingers over his back again, lingering unintentionally over scars and scrapes that he had accumulated without his knowing. The taste of her, mint tea and clear water from her late night ritual, blown gently over his lips. Or even softer things. Her hand, linked with own in a bond so strong it could not break but in a way so casual that it felt effortless. A cloak, wrapped around her shoulders in shades of bright crimson. The feeling of his feet sinking into sand, holding a small hand in his own as they watched her make her way through the water towards them.

“Come in,” She said, and stepped back to let him in.

Her room was far warmer than Tyrion’s, who neglected the fire and left Jaime, who found upkeep of it rather difficult with one useable hand and a set of firewood collectors who despised the sight of him. He had dropped the last armload into the snow and the man who had handed it to him to start with had simply gone back to cutting more. It had been a boy, a man truly, who had finally helped him, smelling like soot and looking so much like Robert Baratheon that Jaime’s breath had frozen. The man had looked aware from his stare, helping him with the wood before pushing past him to get a basket of wood they had cut fresh for the forges. Gendry, Tyrion had told him, one of Robert’s bastards. Winterfell seemed determined to do its best to crush him.

But her room glowed brightly, the amount of ash in the bottom of the fireplace showing how many logs she had kept in the place. And her work paid off. Unlike Tyrion’s windowsill that Jaime slept under, there was no lingering ice around the metalworking. The stones under his shoes as he walked in were warm and dry, the air thick and giving license to the strange urge in his bones that made him want to sleep. There was a table that she seemed to be moving towards, and though he followed, he couldn’t help but spare a glance at her bed, covered in soft, thick furs, the same as she wore venturing out of doors.

She sat down, clearly expecting him to do the same as she cleared away a small stack of ravenscrolls where he might rest his golden hand. He felt his throat constrict at that; if someone noted his arm it was usually with disgust and in the company of friends, they tended to simply ignore it as if that were the best option. But never Brienne. Not since it had happened and she had cleaned him as he was delirious with fever or when they had traveled and she, without asking, had used her own fork until he could slice his food into pieces, or even the night before when she had not recoiled from the touch of his hand on her skin. “Are you in charge of Lady Sansa’s correspondence?”

He asked, gesturing to the letters. He put his left hand on the back of the chair, choosing instead to stand. “For me, actually,” She said, “From my father. Though his ravens have stopped coming in the last few weeks.”

“I doubt Cersei is letting any of them through if she can help it.”

“I would say you’re right.” She regarded him strangely, her eyes trusting but also wary. He wanted to reach out to her, to put whatever doubt she had about him, about them, out of her mind. “What did you wish to speak about, Jaime?”

“Oh, I---,” His brain scrambled for an answer. Any answer. But the sharp wit that he had been able to hide behind most of his life was failing him for the first time. Perhaps the only time it would ever truly matter. “Our…time.”

“Our time?”

He could, and should, have realized this was a hopeless endeavor, but he was not a man to give up easily. “Our time together.” He clarified shakily, “And the other night in the baths…”

He watched her face, seeing her chin wobble slightly, the way it did when she was feeling very emotional. It should have scared him, but it was, in that moment, exactly what he needed. To see her as vulnerable as himself. As open.

“I came to Winterfell,” If she was afraid, she didn’t show it, but he could see the eyes of someone steeling themselves against expected hurt, “For you.”

Not _Because you asked me too_, not _Because of what you said. _He had come for her. All for her, and everything she was to him.

“And I would serve here. Beside you.” He recalled her testimony that had had kept him alive only days before. “Under your command. If you would have me.”

“Jaime—” She stuttered, the rich blush she had always had spreading across her face that already glowed in the firelight. He understood why it was that songs mentioned candlelight. With the soft glow of it on her, war and famine and fighting seemed very far away.

“And I would stay here with you tonight,” He swallowed as she stood slowly, stepping towards him, “Every night. If that’s what you want.”

He glances at her lips and back up, the heat coming form her far overshadowing the heat from the fire. He reaches out a hand to hers, twinging his fingers into hers, all callouses and thin bones and knuckles that are surprisingly soft.

“What is it that you want, Brienne?”

“Do you not know, Jaime?” She sounds almost tired as she says it, and her eyes close slightly as she looks at him. They’re blue, brilliantly blue, and he wants to kiss her again. As he had in the bath, as he had wanted to for far longer than he knew.

“Know what?” He said, and maybe it’s the softness in her gaze that causes the throbbing in his chest. The ache that’s buried there to creep outwards and desire, thick as honey to drip down his spine until it burns through his whole body.

“I love you,” She says, plainspoken as she always is. Measured and sure.

“I love you, too,” He answers. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

She doesn’t respond at first and he looks down at her hand. For the first time in truly a long time, he longs for two hands so that he might hold her hand and wrap the other around her waist. Or trail it along the curves of her jaw with stilted surety.

“I want you,” She says and he can’t help but smile at the lightened tone her voice has. Like a younger woman, one who hasn’t been as ravaged by war as she has, one who hasn’t been beaten and tormented and accosted and scarred and risen a warrior. When he looks back up, her blush is rosy patches against her skin, deepening. Passion coils tighter in his stomach and he can feel a thin film of sweat on his kin, brought out by far more than the heat of the fire he thinks they are now too close to.

He pulls his hand from hers and he sees her eyes widen at the apparent rejection. She jerks up, perhaps to cast him out or ask him why he would lead her astray so cruelly until she sees that his now free hand is working to undo the simple knots holding his tunic together.

She watches him for a long time, long enough for him to resort to bracing the strings with his teeth to pull them apart. He can feel the weight of the decision she is making. It isn’t the same as the bath, this is a conscious choice for both of them. To be intimate, to embrace their confessions.

But then, in much the same way she has done in helping cut his meats or in helping him dress after he’d lost his hand, she takes to this task with ease and silence. He feels the fabric loosen from his shoulders, then her hands, lifting it off of him. It catches on his golden hand. Without speaking, though her lips tighten with some unvoiced emotion, she deftly undoes the clasps and moves both the hand and his shirt to the table with a gentle tap.

She drew back and he swallowed. He could feel the tight press in his mind to step towards her, to press as close to her as possible, feel her warmth against his skin. “We don’t have to do this, Brienne,” He says, and he means it. He can leave. He should leave, and leave this all intact and leave her alone to live a life not shadowed by her connection to him. But he doesn’t want to go. He wants this. He wants her.

Instead she reaches for the strings off her own jerkin, loosening them quickly as if she’s afraid that if she stops, something terrible might happen to both of them. He watched, a bit awe-inspired, as more of skin became visible. He had seen her before, on two occasions, actually, but this was different. Her shirt opened in the middle and she met his gaze before shrugging it off of herself, laying it next to hers.

And then his hand was cupping her jaw and her skin was pressed against him and her lips were open against his own in a kiss that tasted like mint tea and clear water.

He pulled her tight to him, left hand trailing over her torso. Through her hair, down the thin column of her neck, to her breasts that she pressed into his touch. He moaned into her mouth as she traced the planes of his back with her hands, her touch so gentle that if he couldn’t feel arousal starting to coil like a snake inside him, he worried he might have cried. Leaving her lips, he kissed along the column of her neck, sucked softly at pulse points as he explored her body.

Her breath was warm on his neck, coming in quickening pants as he slid his hand around her waistband, pushing the soft breeches she wore to the floor. He almost suggested they move to her bed, sink into the soft pile of furs she had accumulated, but she was kissing him again and there was certainly no rush.

He trailed a hand down her back, giving her a light squeeze over her smallclothes. She practically jumped and he smiled against her cheek as they broke apart. “We should move to the bed,” He said softly, kissing from her cheek to her jawline. He could feel her blush heating under his lips, and reveled in that for just a moment before reaching for her hand to take the lead for them.

Before he could, he felt the strings on the front of his trousers being undone and her fingers trailing from his waist down to his thighs over his smallclothes until they slipped down his legs and he could step out of both them and his shoes in easy succession.

“I thought it might be easier,” She said and he was possessed with the urge to sweep his arm under her and carry her to the bed, to lay her down on the blankets under her breath was heavy with the sound of his name. But he settled for a smile and tug of her hand that had them both sitting on the bed.

He kissed her again, cradling her face in his grip. As she relaxed against him, he leaned into her, pressing her back into the bed. It was a slow progress, and each accidental brush of her against his arousal was becoming a near agony. But the trust he could feel, practically radiating off of her was giving him a new sort of feeling. She let him press her back, hover his body over hers as his tongue moved all over her skin. She let him close his lips over her breasts and answered only with a soft sigh and a hand threading through his hair. She spoke his name softly as he rolled her smallclothes down her never-ending legs and discarded them far away from the bed.

“Is this alright?” He asked, kissing her stomach, his hand balanced on her thigh as his thumb made small circles over the impossibly pale skin. He was thrilled to know that her blush extended down to her chest that was as red as her face at the moment.

“I trust you,” She said, and his next heartbeat leapt into his throat. He trailed kisses down to her thighs, as strong as the skin was soft. With each light such or nibble along, he heard the slight involuntary whimper she gave, and resisted the urge to grin with a sort of wicked delight. Instead, he shifted his weight, balancing on his right arm and his knees carefully to brush against her.

She stilled completely as he became more bold with his touches, teasing and trailing against the dampness he could feel collecting there. Looking up for any sign of hesitation, he pressed one finger into her slowly, watching her eyes close against the sensation. He wondered if she had touched herself like this before. Who she thought of when she did. If it was him.

He moved his thumb up, searching for a moment before he found what he was looking for. This time she did react, as if shocked in the small of her back, pressing against his fingers. He couldn’t suppress the grin now, especially as she sat up on her arms, curving her body to be close to his touch. Moving his thumb in slow circles, he slid a second finger into her, the slide almost easy as she reacted to him.

“Jaime,” She breathed out, and he pressed another kiss to her thigh before stilling his thumb. She pressed into him, her body clearly unhappy with the loss of contact, but he held her gaze for a long moment. He curled his fingers, a trick he had learned long ago, the same moment he closed his lips around her bundle of nerves.

He body contracted around his fingers, her first orgasm hitting hard and fast with a warmth flowing around his fingers. He stopped for a moment, but only a moment, sliding a third finger into her and sucked harder.

His name was leaving her lips in shuddering gasps, recovering from that first wave as a second built far more slowly. He moved his fingers carefully, the slick feel of her body making his cock ache in his smallclothes, wanting friction of any kind.

“Jaime,” She panted. It was in a different sort of way, and he stopped, looking up at her. “I want you.” He kept his mouth on her for a moment longer, longer enough to slide his fingers out of her carefully before he kissed his way back up her body, his cock pressing against her through his clothes, the heat almost unbearable. He pressed against her for a moment, taking her lips in a kiss that she returned eagerly.

But her hands weren’t idle, reaching for his smallclothes and pushing them off of him where he could kick them off (hopefully not into the fire). She stopped kissing him then, maybe not consciously, but enough that he paused, wondering if now, when faced with this piece, they might actually stop.

But then he felt her fingers on his lips, trailing from there down his cheek, down his chest in wide plains, to the cut of his hips until finally she wrapped her hand around his cock. He tried to bite back the moan that bubbled in his chest at her slow explorations. “Brienne,” He said finally, and she stopped, quickly moving her hands up to his shoulderblade, hint of an embarrassed blush on her cheeks.

“We can stop,” He said slowly, wanting to be certain.

“I don’t want to stop,” She said, so softly he thought he might be dreaming it. He looked down, taking himself in his hand and shifting to press against her.

“Jaime,” He paused, almost inside her. “Look at me.”

Her hand curved around his jaw, thumb making slow strokes against his chin. “I love you,” He said, not moving.

“I love you, too.” She answered and her eyes, blue as sapphire water held his own as he moved inside her for the first time.


End file.
